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King Coal CEO - "Black is the new green."

The head of the largest privately-owned coal company in the world,
Peabody Energy, admitted to his company’s support of the massive
green-washing project by the coal industry in a USA Todayarticle today.

“There's
a perception out there that coal is dirty, and we have to change that,”
he is quoted as saying. According to the article Peabody “kicked in
about $9 million this year to an ad campaign touting "clean coal."”
And they are accused of being one of the largest factors in the defeat
of federal action to deal with global warming this summer.

Here’s some math:

More than 100%: spot market coal price increase in the last year

$4.65 million: the amount of money the coal industry’s front group has poured into D.C. lobbying federal officials this year

$9 million: the amount of money Peabody has chipped in to a green-washing project telling everyone about so-called “clean coal”

More than $5 billion: the likely construction cost of Peabody’s proposed dirty coal plant (without any controls for carbon dioxide), in Illinois

Only $30 million: the amount of money Peabody had actually committed to the “FutureGen” project, also in Illinois, to demonstrate so-called “clean coal” technology, which was scrapped

The coal industry is spending far more money building dirty coal plants, telling people that “clean coal” exists, reaping the profits of high coal prices, and quashing efforts to deal with global warming than actually trying to solve any problem.

While folks in Tennessee are faced with the largest rate increase in history because of skyrocketing coal costs, Peabody CEO Gregory Boyce “shrugs off any worries” and says “Black is the new green.”